Saturday, July 26, 2008

Television Under Attack

It must be a terrible time to be in the television business. Consumer media habits are shifting and it must seem every day brings news of a new competitor or new challenge. Here are some of those news items from just the past couple of days:

Xbox Live to Premiere Original Comedic Shorts: Remember the good old days when TV networks had a virtual monopoly on daily consumer entertainment? Nowadays, everyone is a competitor, including gaming consoles: Microsoft’s Xbox Live is set to premiere seven original comedic shorts this fall which have been produced by several high-profile talents from the horror movie world. Microsoft hopes to turn one or more of them into a series or movie franchise. The shorts "will be ad supported in some fashion."

Radio Getting "Visual": This news items almost seems like a continuation of the last one. Radio now wants a piece of television's action by becoming more visual. CBS Radio has announced the launch of a new video platform for its radio station Web sites. The new platform gives 140 radio stations "the ability to create personalized branded video players to feature station content, such as music videos, artist interviews, live concert performances, breaking news and original programming, and allows stations to syndicate content or embed clips to be shared via social networking."

Dramatic Transformation of Marketing and Media: In an interview with Strategy + Business, Booz & Company Partner Christopher Vollmer shares his thoughts on the "dramatic transformation of marketing and media." He notes that "in just the last few years, there’s been explosive growth in the amount of time consumers spend online, " and he predicts that "as people become more accustomed to dealing with media that’s on demand and better aimed at their interests and behaviors, they’re going to find that they want to spend more time in targeted media environments."

Vollmer predicts continued migration to entertainment or information platforms where consumers choose how they interact with programming and content, such as video games, video on demand, and online media.

All this growth was liable to draw attention, and now the FCC is opening an investigation into the use of undisclosed paid product placements in broadcast TV shows. Seeking to alert consumers when they are seeing paid advertising, several proposals are being consider. Some are pretty minor, such as increasing the font used to disclose product placement during shows' credits, but some consumer groups are looking for far more, such as a crawl in the middle of shows to disclose when paid product placement is on screen.

Daily Video Entertainment in 2013 Will Be Less Than 50% Traditional TV: According to the Multiplatform Video Report released by Solutions Research Group, television viewing is projected to remain stable between now and 2013 in terms of hours but will drop as a percentage of the time consumers spend with video entertainment. This is because consumers will continue to increase their usage of PC and mobile video while TV viewing will remain stagnant. TV's share of the total video entertainment pie is projected to shrink from 63.9% today to 47.1% by 2013.

And even though the hours spent with TV will remain constant, the report predicts that "the ratio of 'linear' to 'time-shifted' programming will continue to change in favor of time-shifting," which means (not surprisingly) even more opportunities for consumers to zap ads on broadcast television.

It will be interesting to see what becomes of free network television in the years to come. With consumers ever more in control of their media consumption, traditional TV will continue to get squeezed in relation to other more targeted, measurable, and consumer-welcomed forms of marketing.

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About Experience: The Blog

The world is changing rapidly, both for consumers and brands. Consumers are more empowered than ever before and traditional business models are under attack.

In an increasingly social, mobile and real-time world, brands are created not by the messages they broadcast but by the experiences they offer--ones that create empathy, build trust, earn loyalty, spur Word of Mouth, encourage collaboration, and provide ever greater value to customers in innovative ways. On this blog, we explore how brands are built and business improved via Customer Experience Management, purposeful corporate culture, social and mobile business strategy and collaborative economy models.

You are welcome to participate, criticize, praise, critique, expand, or correct the information and opinions found on this blog. Spam, off-topic, or crude comments will be deleted, but all others are welcome.

About the Author

I am Augie Ray, Research Director covering customer experience at Gartner. I conduct and publish research and advise Fortune 500 clients on the value, process, measurement and tools of customer experience. This includes topics such as Voice of the Customer (VoC), personas, customer journey maps, CX governance, and customer experiences metrics that are leading metrics of brand success.

Previously, I was Director of Global Voice of Customer Strategy for a Fortune 100 financial service company. My background includes more than 20 years of experience in digital, brand, customer experience and social media.

In the past, I led social business at USAA, a firm recognized for its innovative use of communities and social customer care within the financial service industry. I also consulted and published analysis as a Forrester analyst covering digital marketing and social media. In addition, I led a diverse $9 million agency team with specialties in digital development, digital experiential marketing and community strategy.

The future will bring a great deal of innovation that offers opportunities to organizations that are agile and willing to cannibalize their own business models (but it will severely challenge those organizations that cannot.)

The views expressed on this website/blog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.